"A group of artists who came to be known as the 'Northwest School' emerged in and around Seattle in the 1940s. Those who say no 'northwest School of art' ever really existed speak true. No formal group met in agreement; no manifesto was issued. Yet when the words 'Northwest School' are spoken, only a newcomer to the region may not know what is meant. The elusive nature of the School is in keeping with the spirit of the art itself. From the beginning, it defied definition. Four artists were brought to national attention by a 1953 article in Life magazine, titled 'Mystic Painters of the Northwest': Mark Toby, Morris Graves, Guy Anderson, and Kenneth Callahan." [Source: Ament, Deloris Tarzan. Iridescent light: the emergence of Northwest art. Seattle : University of Washington Press ; La Conner : Museum of Northwest Art, c2002]

Kenneth Callahan was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1906, but he spent most of his childhood in Glasgow, Montana. Callahan began painting in watercolors when he was 7 years old. After a brief stint as a student at the University of Washington, he traveled to California. He had his first one-man show in San Francisco in 1926. He then traveled around the world while working on ships, eventually returning to Seattle. In 1930 he married Margaret Bundy. In 1933, Callahan was hired as a part-time employee of the newly established Seattle Art Museum, where he worked until 1952. Margaret died in 1961, and two years later, Callahan's studio near Granite Falls was destroyed by fire, taking with it many of his paintings and works by other Northwest artists for which he had traded. Callahan married again in 1964 to Beth Inge Gottfriedsen, and the couple settled in Long Beach, Washington. He continued to work in his studio there until his death May 8, 1986.